I.
Lo! Appetite-men of the Iowa, of the Kansas, of the Dakotas.
Sated on maize-whiskers, on soya and bran-meats,
Barbed by cockleburrs, and wooled by heavenly cotton.
Lo! Appetite-men made grown from fed appetite-boys,
From bulbous wombs bequeathed children and calves,
And from teats all suckled on copious dairy-wine.
Know that fertility abundanced the Midwest of yore,
With manly and herbly and meatly plentitude.
Farmer-Mother whose loins some Farmer-Father took,
Sprouted the heroic child-crop Dwayne-Boy,
Heightened by bovine milk left pure by nature,
Sipped unquenchedly, by hands and stones did grow,
Nourished to bull-strength -- by whose udder!
By the bosoms of the mooing prairie-angels!
Rumors make Dwayne-Boy's innocent life undone,
Tavern lore tells of Farmer-Father, merely a sire,
His nine sons by nine virginal Farmer-Mothers,
Numbering eight known by leveraged hedge-funds,
Numbering one known by keeping milk-faith and crops.
Of the one half-brother who dreamed little,
He lived humbly, and loved his wife, and his nine childs,
And sought only sustenance and perhaps a minivan,
Whose simple life his eight half-brothers dismissed.
Of the eight brothers did lust in excess of farmer-wives,
Tantalized by dreams of sating all men by their nutrition,
And tantalized by dreams of owning many of diesel tractors.
They with Modo bargained fiercely and shrewdly,
Without sleep for four days and five nights negotiated,
And the eight brothers brayed with glee, 'Hie!' and 'Ho!'
When wily Modo agreed under eight blood-scribed contracts,
To a business conglomerate by their greed and his sorcery,
So was signed their certificate of incorporation,
Whence born the golem known by name of the Monsanto,
The engine necromantic! The human un-being!
The fist of alchemy! The gene-muddler!
Borne with maw whose appetite consumes indiscriminately,
And borne with malice which schemes unscruplingly.
From one sire derived both Dwayne-Boy and the Monsanto.
II.
Never days passed when the Monsanto left farms unravaged,
Leaving hine and hands no fields to plow, no teats to pull,
Come each autumn, more farmers rallied at the harvest fete,
Where more to commiserate over pastures made fen,
Where more to starve, desperate for mutton and millet,
Where more to join militias, so futile against the Monsanto.
And among them arrived the minivan of Dwayne-Boy,
Who had no need to come to the Autumn Festival,
With his fecund wife, with his hardy boys nine,
With his hearty maize, with his pure milk,
With his peace, with his industry, with his bull-strength,
Farmer-Mother took her toddling son here afore,
But Dwayne-Boy grown found nothing remembered,
No honky-tonk played, and no sour-mash quaffed and,
No courters danced squares, and no rope-wars tugged and,
Dwayne-Boy found welcome as one of few farmers,
To endure the Mosanto! To preserve the Midwest!
Thus, the starved farmers championed Dwayne-Boy.
Huddled hundreds around the Hero-Propitious,
Of the Monsanto, they spake of their trials in turn.
By Waldo: 'My crops! My crops! Left to twist as weeds!
Oh, how the Monsanto transmogrified my livelihood!
Left with morsels first unpalatable and second scant!
My family left as scarcely fed as my granary is full!
By Yttrius: 'What the woman churns does not yield butter!
From the congealed sick-sap emanates an odor, an odor!
My two gluttons for sons consumed much and died,
And I see the cows graze, brewing toxic potions within.
By Mortimer: 'Mine crops grow so tall only to fall,
And plagues curdle the soil, making none else grow,
The sweet soya and bran-meat forfeit their fallow-home,
Left limp and dead for smug weeds to dance upon!
By Hullup: On fish my family always have dined,
But the Lakes bearing Greatness have tasted PCB,
And the trout-fleisch festers with a vile sheen,
Bringing rashes and runty kin and miscarriages upon us.
By Boggo: Our cattle now lurch like snails through pastures,
Leaving a trail of residue like a snail that wilted grass,
Their udders bloated with by insidious hex of rBST,
Like a moored zeppelin, their milk-sacs blistering with pus.
By Paltrow: The crops brought no longer cotton soft,
But wisps impalpable and dream-puffs useless,
No better than the promises advertised in pamphlets,
In droves, in thousands, farmers suicide themselves,
For debtors knock and the Monsanto has left nothing.
At the festival remained those few prideful and alive.
III.
These sad words brought Dwayne-Boy to weep openly,
And remember the impossible legends of the Monsanto,
And the recall rumors of his kinship to the Brothers Eight,
Who did partner by unsavory pacts with the CEO Modo.
The brave farmers of the Midwest asked not for sorrow!
But nor for sympathy! But nor for salvation!
All souls human and bovine and botanical would succumb,
To the Monsanto's devastation lest one intervened,
So went Dwayne-Boy to beseech his brothers unmet.
Traveling many days and nights by the coach bus Greyhound,
Subsisting on grilled cheese and corn flakes of greasy spoons,
Tasting foul, and Dwayne-Boy knew the Monsanto was near,
And nearer, until inside was he the corporate headquarters.
Past security desk and by elevator rose the One-Brother,
To the highest of ninety-nine floors which had no number,
In the executive penthouse laid the brothers eight in wait.
He, garbed in overalls with hay clamped tween his teeth,
They, garbed in suits pieced thrice and ties of power. But!
Dwayne-Boy nary trembled under evidence of class-disparity,
And so regaled the lamentations of the Midwesterners,
Telling of the weeds ubiquitous! Of the weeping salt-grain!
Of the misery-lowing kine! Of the purulent milchers!
Of the suicided farmers! Of the fatherless families!
Of all the misfortune and malady dispensed by the Monsanto!
Tearful Dwayne-Boy wept for the fate of the Midwest,
To which the brothers eight kept stoic and unmoved,
Dismissing all claims of harm brought by the One-Brother,
And unfurled charts and graphs and figures incomprehensible,
And calculated p-values singing statistical insignificance,
Citing research-evidence and statutes of the High Judges,
Proving the brothers eight and Modo and the Monsanto,
Unrelated to any adversity unto the Midwest beyond doubt,
Which did confound the humble-brains of Dwayne-Boy,
Who left defeated, not knowing why he went at all.
IV.
It was decided then-there by his insidious fraternity,
That Dwayne-Boy was no brother of needful keeping,
And did not represent the kind of Farmer-Father's guile.
The brothers eight invoked the sanguine-chant,
And drew the blood-icon. Thus summoned the CEO Modo!
Puppeteer of the Monsanto! The Stomachless One!
The wretched Modo paged the Monsanto only once,
Then informed by phone how Dwayne-Boy must end,
To which the Monsanto obediently complied and went.
Sullen Dwayne-Boy plowed his fields with dull sticks,
He irrigated his ditches with tears and plumbic-water,
And no crops did grow with vitamins or calories,
Leaving his crops dormant or wee, his draft horse brittle,
And himself pale and atrophied and lesion-spotted,
His family dead by disease, with his cough his only friend,
With wistful eyes, he briefly considers to suicide himself,
But instead resolves to triumph through diligence. When!
Afar upon the horizon, what invades his acreage? Behold!
The Agricultural-Giant, the Monsanto, razes the lands!
With minivan and pitchfork and blunderbuss goes Dwayne-Boy,
To end the Monsanto, with perish in mind for himself or it.
Never had Dwayne-Boy seen the Monsanto so close:
Under leather-hide writhed sinews sprung for predation,
Eyes which see germs, and ears which hear stars,
With eight arms and eight taloned hands to rend things living,
The perfect-mutant of no beast or tree known to the Midwest,
Towering above all moral responsibility stands the Monsanto.
And against him, the earthly Dwayne-Boy, the Bull-Child,
Who among men fared many hands high and stones heavy,
But still only a single man battling the Ever-Million Gened.
Whose pitchfork bent against the Monsanto's ferric-bone!
Whose pellets as useless as seeds upon the Monsanto's skin!
Whose minivan crumpled under the hoof of the Monsanto's fury!
The Monsanto battered Dwayne-Boy, ignorant of mercy,
Pulverizing his toes into jelly, his bones splintered to many,
His ribs imploded to stab the throne of soul-being, his heart!
Beaten, awaiting death, Dwayne-Boy coughed blood in rivers,
Which puddled about the Monsanto's feet unsuspectingly.
Contrived in the laboratory, Modo crafted the Monsanto,
By a design blind to all inventions natural to the earth,
To surpass them all by fortitude and cunning -- Alas!
The virulent cough of Dwayne-Boy spread by haste,
Infecting the Monsanto thoroughly and fatally,
Who went from sniffles to splotches to irreversible death.
And collapsed under the weight of its own engineering.
V.
The triumphant sought retribution upon the brothers eight,
Violently quartered to make thirty-two punishable portions,
With twenty-four quarters to fertilize the new crops of the Midwest!
On oats, on triticale! On barley, vetch, red clover!
On cotton, flax, and rye. On sorghum, maize, and spinach!
On buckwheat, rapeseed. Kale and marigolds! On cowpeas!
And mustard, canola, and turnips! And soya, hemp!
On horse beans, field peas, and mung beans!
On alfalfa and on millet! And the crops grew high and rich!
With four quarters sacrificed to the deities to protect the dairies!
To protect the eggs, the milk, the beef, the poultry!
And with four quarters sent North and South, East and West,
As warnings to those business-farmers who dabble,
In the black witchcraftery kept secret as GMOs and pesticides,
And displayed forever for all entering the Midwest to see.
Dwayne-Boy healed, nursed by the fruits of the farmlands,
And when he stood, became the Farmer-King of the Midwest.
All farmers prosper, and the harvest returned to the familiar,
Where honky-tonk played, and where sour-mash quaffed and,
Where courters danced squares, and where rope-wars tugged.
So peace again found the farmlands of the Midwest,
As before the Hunger Age of Modo and the Mosanto.
But with great prejudice, foods deemed impure were eradicated,
And only in old age did Dwayne-Boy understand the legend,
That the Farmer-King and the Monsanto were intolerant alike,
And starved the people by the pursuit of ideals without reason,
With that, Dwayne-Boy left the Midwest, never returning.
Ending the Hunger Age forever upon this world and his people.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
skit #80: the manor
You traveled too far. You promised to return with peach preserves and candied pecans, but you accumulated only an irreversible distance.
Upon your return, gossip of your presumptuous repatriation reached the queen. As prescribed for any ant, she denounced you as a defector from the colony. The anthill predictably aligned itself with her vapid propaganda. What punishment the queen invented was none but a formulaic product of the royal whim; The queen only sought obedience from the loyal ants, not harm upon the disloyal. Your sorority concurred to make you unwelcome, and I was part of that sorority. You remained unperturbed while your only family shunned you. At that time did I both admire and pity you.
The queen insisted we each are capable of, and in fact destined for, treason against the hive. Even the queen may betray the hive, whereupon all truly loyal citizens shall demand a new queen.
Curled in a cozy nook off the path in a tunnel wall, you held staid and supine. You fasted and slept for days. We sisters took turns pestering for answers, but you explained nothing. Even when I visited you apart from the factory hours and alone from the queen's cohorts, you would not divulge your new demeanor. Whatever epiphany spurred your reticence remained a mystery to your sisters. Behind black and chitin-curtained eyes, you safely stowed your secret. I told you how your silence served no purpose unless the hive understood your vow, my stubborn sister.
As we passed you on work days, some of the snider sisters passed judgments, threatening your expulsion, your excommunication, your execution. Unprovoked by these insults, you remained in that cozy nook, idle and aloof. They had been right, and I could not defend how you abstained from our very livelihood which sheltered and nurtured you so. Dismissive of you, we continued with our labors.
Your scandalous return did not rile the older sisters. They had seen many sisters come and go. Departing the hive changes each lady incurably, they noted; Some joked with uncertainty whether it was something to cure at all. They brewed their stagnant wisdom from complacent homesteadiness. And they promised that one day I, should I never defect, may drink their bland ambrosia too.
Shifting through grass chaff for seeds, a sister in my platoon described how she found you. She found you deep within the manor as she searched for honey. You were in a deplorable state: not working, not moving, not eating; incapacitated, dried and dessicated; an empty husk like the chaff we tread on. She carried you from the pantry, down the cupboards, out of the kitchen, under the window jamb, through the garden, back to our formicary. She could have returned with gobs of honey, but instead we regained you and your ingratitude.
No matter how we wish vitality upon your thorax, my stubborn sister, you refuse it. No matter how we set morsels in your mandibles, my stubborn sister, you release it. You show no remorse as you let it all spill to waste.
All ants must bring fertility to the colony, actively or passively. Looking to gain favor, the younger sisters enacted the royal punishment. They buried you into the food store to compost, and you did not resist. Only the antly would struggle against such lethargy. Some of the older sisters attended your burial, recounting among themselves all the times they'd each seen this ceremony, tallying their sadness by means of morbid arithmetic. The hive lost a sister.
I recalled how the nursery raised all of us sisters in the same manner. The matrons diverted all the nymphs with the same fables honey-lakes effervescing deep in the manor. The legends made exclusive promises with you and not with me. The colonial life satisfied me, but you looked afar for peach preserves and candied pecans.
Weeks later, my daily duties determined me to feed your lifeless body to our nymphs in the nursery.
Now I am an older sister, brimming with stagnant wisdom. All the nymphs I raised on legends of honey-lakes have grown. I see you have returned, reborn among the young. I show you which door jamb allows your entrance to the splendors of the manor.
Upon your return, gossip of your presumptuous repatriation reached the queen. As prescribed for any ant, she denounced you as a defector from the colony. The anthill predictably aligned itself with her vapid propaganda. What punishment the queen invented was none but a formulaic product of the royal whim; The queen only sought obedience from the loyal ants, not harm upon the disloyal. Your sorority concurred to make you unwelcome, and I was part of that sorority. You remained unperturbed while your only family shunned you. At that time did I both admire and pity you.
The queen insisted we each are capable of, and in fact destined for, treason against the hive. Even the queen may betray the hive, whereupon all truly loyal citizens shall demand a new queen.
Curled in a cozy nook off the path in a tunnel wall, you held staid and supine. You fasted and slept for days. We sisters took turns pestering for answers, but you explained nothing. Even when I visited you apart from the factory hours and alone from the queen's cohorts, you would not divulge your new demeanor. Whatever epiphany spurred your reticence remained a mystery to your sisters. Behind black and chitin-curtained eyes, you safely stowed your secret. I told you how your silence served no purpose unless the hive understood your vow, my stubborn sister.
As we passed you on work days, some of the snider sisters passed judgments, threatening your expulsion, your excommunication, your execution. Unprovoked by these insults, you remained in that cozy nook, idle and aloof. They had been right, and I could not defend how you abstained from our very livelihood which sheltered and nurtured you so. Dismissive of you, we continued with our labors.
Your scandalous return did not rile the older sisters. They had seen many sisters come and go. Departing the hive changes each lady incurably, they noted; Some joked with uncertainty whether it was something to cure at all. They brewed their stagnant wisdom from complacent homesteadiness. And they promised that one day I, should I never defect, may drink their bland ambrosia too.
Shifting through grass chaff for seeds, a sister in my platoon described how she found you. She found you deep within the manor as she searched for honey. You were in a deplorable state: not working, not moving, not eating; incapacitated, dried and dessicated; an empty husk like the chaff we tread on. She carried you from the pantry, down the cupboards, out of the kitchen, under the window jamb, through the garden, back to our formicary. She could have returned with gobs of honey, but instead we regained you and your ingratitude.
No matter how we wish vitality upon your thorax, my stubborn sister, you refuse it. No matter how we set morsels in your mandibles, my stubborn sister, you release it. You show no remorse as you let it all spill to waste.
All ants must bring fertility to the colony, actively or passively. Looking to gain favor, the younger sisters enacted the royal punishment. They buried you into the food store to compost, and you did not resist. Only the antly would struggle against such lethargy. Some of the older sisters attended your burial, recounting among themselves all the times they'd each seen this ceremony, tallying their sadness by means of morbid arithmetic. The hive lost a sister.
I recalled how the nursery raised all of us sisters in the same manner. The matrons diverted all the nymphs with the same fables honey-lakes effervescing deep in the manor. The legends made exclusive promises with you and not with me. The colonial life satisfied me, but you looked afar for peach preserves and candied pecans.
Weeks later, my daily duties determined me to feed your lifeless body to our nymphs in the nursery.
Now I am an older sister, brimming with stagnant wisdom. All the nymphs I raised on legends of honey-lakes have grown. I see you have returned, reborn among the young. I show you which door jamb allows your entrance to the splendors of the manor.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
skit #79: the racehorse
Riley mopes about the grandstand, burdened by the inverted levity of having nothing. Congruent with the bookie's odds, for every ebullient face unlike his, he finds ten dismal twins. In name and notion, the Downs makes no pretense of how Riley shall collapse. His uniform buries him beneath denims and dungarees. Only does the Downs provide a slit through which he may peep upon his dream.
The stadium sets him far away from the spectacle. In the center of the racetrack, wee mammals run useless circles, saddled with even weer mammals. Over the chatter of his fellow losers, he can not hear the giddiups or whinnies of jockeys or ponies; At this distance, the racers seem to move at such a lazy pace that even he could outtrot them, though Riley forgoes this feat.
His fingers grope for change in the abyss of is pocket. The few coins he retrieves are rigid in form and petty in value. He reverses and re-reverses his nickel from no to yes to no. Far too predictable for gambling, so instead he invests the coin in the predictable sort of dream. Riley clicks the coin against the bar to buy a golden draught, not caring which face shows.
The plight of the racehorse inspires Riley to ask no one, 'Gawd. Who's on my back.'
'That's why you're here, isn't it? For a little freedom? Let them go, let them all go,' replies the clean-shaven man to his right.
'Ha, can't go nowhere without a ticket.'
'A ticket doesn't win money, it buys a fantasy. Might as well imagine yourself a ticket.'
'Hell, spent all my imagination on this beer.'
The clean-shaven man chuckles wisely, “Don't get down on yourself, brother. Money means nothing, what does – '
...
AND HURTLING FIRST THROUGH THE GATE IS BLUE COLLAR BOBBY
FOLLOWED BY STRANGE BOON
WITH INEVITABLE ALLEGORY PLACING THIRD
FOR THE NEXT RACE FRESH FROM THE HAYSTACK WE HAVE
...
' – yaaaaahooooooo!'
The clean-shaven man returns with generosity to match his mirth. He does not mind when his full billfold molts a few notes onto Riley's lap. After the clean-shaven man bids farewell and departs the Downs, Riley bets his spoils on Entry #56. Riley sits in the bleachers besides the thousands else, each with their own wishes and their own betting slips. Riley's slip reads:
MONEY TALKS
Louis Bragnan
Over the loudspeaker, an announcer's tongue frantically speeds in league with the horses' legs.
...
THERES THE PISTOL MARK
AND THEYRE OFF OUT OF THE GATE
HOME SWEET HOME SEIZES THE LEAD
TRAILING COME MY FAIR LADY AND A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE
YAHWEHS FAVE CLOSES THE GAP AND CUTS INTO THIRD
PUTTING CORNUCOPIA OUT OF THE TOP RUNNERS
A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE DRIVES THE INSIDE
PASSES HOME SWEET HOME IN A WIDE SWEEP
AND THE QUARTER MARK
HARMLESS FUN AND MONEY TALKS MAKE THEIR WAY
THUNDERING PAST YAHWEHS FAVE AND MY FAIR LADY
A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE STILL UNSHAKABLE
MONEY TALKS AND YOU OBEY
YOUR HEART BEATS TO THEIR HOOVES ON THE TRACK
THIS IS WHERE YOU SPENT THE WEEK
THIS IS WHERE YOU BELONG
UP TO THE HALF MARK
SHE LEFT YOU ALL OVER SOME HARMLESS FUN
BUT SHELL COME BACK ONE DAY
THEN YOU CAN TELL HER SHE HAD HER CHANCE
SOON YOULL BE TANNING IN THE SUN
DRINKING TOP SHELF MAI TAIS WITH NUBILE TAHITIANS
YOU DREAM HARD ENOUGH AND ITLL COME TRUE RILEY
THREE QUARTERS
MONEY TALKS USURPS FIRST PLACE
UPSETTING A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE
FOLLOWED BY HOME SWEET HOME AND CORNUCOPIA
MONEY TALKS SETS A STRONG LEAD
SHES FLYING LIKE SHE BUSTED OUT OF A GLUE FACTORY
LOUIS BRAGNAN TAKES MONEY TALKS TWO LENGTHS AHEAD
FIVE LENGTHS AHEAD
SIX LENGTHS AHEAD
THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE
NINE LENGTHS AHEAD
OH NO
WHAT IN THE HECK IS LOUIS BRAGNAN
NOW FIFTEEN LENGTHS AHEAD
OH LORDY
OH MY
THIS AINT GOOD
SIXTEEN LENGTHS AHEAD
MONEY TALKS SETS THE FIRST LAP
...
Louis Bragnan stands as tall as he can stand. So does Riley. His arms rise to the sky victoriously. So do Riley's. The rest of the crowd remains seated; Riley scoffs at those who dared not vote for the underdog, #56. Money Talks slows from gallop to canter to walk. The remaining racers thunder past the mistaken champions, considering them competitors no longer, only irrelevant obstacles. As Riley sprints to collect on #56, the race continues without his attention.
The stadium sets him far away from the spectacle. In the center of the racetrack, wee mammals run useless circles, saddled with even weer mammals. Over the chatter of his fellow losers, he can not hear the giddiups or whinnies of jockeys or ponies; At this distance, the racers seem to move at such a lazy pace that even he could outtrot them, though Riley forgoes this feat.
His fingers grope for change in the abyss of is pocket. The few coins he retrieves are rigid in form and petty in value. He reverses and re-reverses his nickel from no to yes to no. Far too predictable for gambling, so instead he invests the coin in the predictable sort of dream. Riley clicks the coin against the bar to buy a golden draught, not caring which face shows.
The plight of the racehorse inspires Riley to ask no one, 'Gawd. Who's on my back.'
'That's why you're here, isn't it? For a little freedom? Let them go, let them all go,' replies the clean-shaven man to his right.
'Ha, can't go nowhere without a ticket.'
'A ticket doesn't win money, it buys a fantasy. Might as well imagine yourself a ticket.'
'Hell, spent all my imagination on this beer.'
The clean-shaven man chuckles wisely, “Don't get down on yourself, brother. Money means nothing, what does – '
...
AND HURTLING FIRST THROUGH THE GATE IS BLUE COLLAR BOBBY
FOLLOWED BY STRANGE BOON
WITH INEVITABLE ALLEGORY PLACING THIRD
FOR THE NEXT RACE FRESH FROM THE HAYSTACK WE HAVE
...
' – yaaaaahooooooo!'
The clean-shaven man returns with generosity to match his mirth. He does not mind when his full billfold molts a few notes onto Riley's lap. After the clean-shaven man bids farewell and departs the Downs, Riley bets his spoils on Entry #56. Riley sits in the bleachers besides the thousands else, each with their own wishes and their own betting slips. Riley's slip reads:
MONEY TALKS
Louis Bragnan
Over the loudspeaker, an announcer's tongue frantically speeds in league with the horses' legs.
...
THERES THE PISTOL MARK
AND THEYRE OFF OUT OF THE GATE
HOME SWEET HOME SEIZES THE LEAD
TRAILING COME MY FAIR LADY AND A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE
YAHWEHS FAVE CLOSES THE GAP AND CUTS INTO THIRD
PUTTING CORNUCOPIA OUT OF THE TOP RUNNERS
A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE DRIVES THE INSIDE
PASSES HOME SWEET HOME IN A WIDE SWEEP
AND THE QUARTER MARK
HARMLESS FUN AND MONEY TALKS MAKE THEIR WAY
THUNDERING PAST YAHWEHS FAVE AND MY FAIR LADY
A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE STILL UNSHAKABLE
MONEY TALKS AND YOU OBEY
YOUR HEART BEATS TO THEIR HOOVES ON THE TRACK
THIS IS WHERE YOU SPENT THE WEEK
THIS IS WHERE YOU BELONG
UP TO THE HALF MARK
SHE LEFT YOU ALL OVER SOME HARMLESS FUN
BUT SHELL COME BACK ONE DAY
THEN YOU CAN TELL HER SHE HAD HER CHANCE
SOON YOULL BE TANNING IN THE SUN
DRINKING TOP SHELF MAI TAIS WITH NUBILE TAHITIANS
YOU DREAM HARD ENOUGH AND ITLL COME TRUE RILEY
THREE QUARTERS
MONEY TALKS USURPS FIRST PLACE
UPSETTING A LITTLE SUGAR ON THE SIDE
FOLLOWED BY HOME SWEET HOME AND CORNUCOPIA
MONEY TALKS SETS A STRONG LEAD
SHES FLYING LIKE SHE BUSTED OUT OF A GLUE FACTORY
LOUIS BRAGNAN TAKES MONEY TALKS TWO LENGTHS AHEAD
FIVE LENGTHS AHEAD
SIX LENGTHS AHEAD
THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE
NINE LENGTHS AHEAD
OH NO
WHAT IN THE HECK IS LOUIS BRAGNAN
NOW FIFTEEN LENGTHS AHEAD
OH LORDY
OH MY
THIS AINT GOOD
SIXTEEN LENGTHS AHEAD
MONEY TALKS SETS THE FIRST LAP
...
Louis Bragnan stands as tall as he can stand. So does Riley. His arms rise to the sky victoriously. So do Riley's. The rest of the crowd remains seated; Riley scoffs at those who dared not vote for the underdog, #56. Money Talks slows from gallop to canter to walk. The remaining racers thunder past the mistaken champions, considering them competitors no longer, only irrelevant obstacles. As Riley sprints to collect on #56, the race continues without his attention.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
skit #78: MAKING YOU DESIRABLE
Her badge read:
MS. LARA F.
MAKING YOU DESIRABLE
BEAUTICIAN
Perfunctorily, she smiled. Fissures cracked around her mouth and eyelids; a make-up mask caked with desperate thickness betrayed her appearance of natural beauty. Mrs Hampson did not judge, for she knew she was far older and far uglier. She noticed Ms Lara F's lipstick perfectly matched the stain's shade.
'Good morning, miss. How may I help you?' chirped Ms Lara F.
'I want to look young,' admitted Mrs Hampson.
'Gosh, maybe we can knock off a year or two. How does nineteen sound?' Ms Lara F laughed a facetious laugh.
Mrs Hampson brushed off the vapid compliment. 'Your lipstick. What kind is it?'
Ms Lara F shuffled for the applicator, 'Furtive Flirt. Here, try.'
Mrs Hampson painted sloppy and sensuous colors around her lips. 'What do you think? How does it work on husbands?'
'Well, I've never been married. One day!' She knocked on wood with an naive eagerness that irritated Mrs Hampson. It reminded her of herself before marrying Arthur. 'You look beautiful!'
Mrs Hampson inspected herself in the mirror. She pouted her lips, imagining staining her husband's dress shirt with a pigment of her own.
Ms Lara F regurgitated the slogan, 'Making you desirable!'
Mrs Hampson paid the balance with her husband's credit card. Ms Lara F's inexperience prolonged the transaction, granting Mrs Hampson ample time to admire the familiar faces on the cosmetics magazines. The receipt printed. Mrs Hampson left, her echoing heels incising through the hollows of the cosmetics department, her lips a predatory pink under the fluorescent lighting, a new woman.
MS. LARA F.
MAKING YOU DESIRABLE
BEAUTICIAN
Perfunctorily, she smiled. Fissures cracked around her mouth and eyelids; a make-up mask caked with desperate thickness betrayed her appearance of natural beauty. Mrs Hampson did not judge, for she knew she was far older and far uglier. She noticed Ms Lara F's lipstick perfectly matched the stain's shade.
'Good morning, miss. How may I help you?' chirped Ms Lara F.
'I want to look young,' admitted Mrs Hampson.
'Gosh, maybe we can knock off a year or two. How does nineteen sound?' Ms Lara F laughed a facetious laugh.
Mrs Hampson brushed off the vapid compliment. 'Your lipstick. What kind is it?'
Ms Lara F shuffled for the applicator, 'Furtive Flirt. Here, try.'
Mrs Hampson painted sloppy and sensuous colors around her lips. 'What do you think? How does it work on husbands?'
'Well, I've never been married. One day!' She knocked on wood with an naive eagerness that irritated Mrs Hampson. It reminded her of herself before marrying Arthur. 'You look beautiful!'
Mrs Hampson inspected herself in the mirror. She pouted her lips, imagining staining her husband's dress shirt with a pigment of her own.
Ms Lara F regurgitated the slogan, 'Making you desirable!'
Mrs Hampson paid the balance with her husband's credit card. Ms Lara F's inexperience prolonged the transaction, granting Mrs Hampson ample time to admire the familiar faces on the cosmetics magazines. The receipt printed. Mrs Hampson left, her echoing heels incising through the hollows of the cosmetics department, her lips a predatory pink under the fluorescent lighting, a new woman.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
skit #77: Calamity Jane
Neither of us have left her room for some days. Pneumonia incapacitates her. Worry immobilizes me. My breath trails hers warily, as her last leads my last.
Calamity Jane coughs violently, and though she never liked pretty things, she inadvertantly decorates her bedsheets with the floral pattern of a portentous funerary bouquet: verdurous phlegm flecked with crimson buds. The brutess does not notice, continues to cough until empty, then spits. To her violence, I flinch and squeal and wail, just as her ongoing regimens of daily abuse had conditioned me to react. My histrionics, which normally elicits her boastful guffaw, fail to fruit even a smirk. She slips into a defeated sleep, and I contemplate the brief life that may await me without her protection.
Nervously, I watch through the window slats. Her illness advertises an opportunity to all the prairie's marauders: the coyotes and the desperados. Now Calamity Jane cannot protect Deadwood or, more selfishly, me. With its heroine fallen, they come to exact retribution upon all which abides by that very society which shuns them. Man and beast alike run Main Street amok, gobbling the vittles off still-clucking chickens, urinating to claim property like conquistadors, nipping up skirts at feminine softnesses, howling with the seductive madness that makes one join in; But I resist their call. How they meet my eyes through the window slats, I know they know I am a gentleman, and so I too shall bear retribution.
Two years ago, Marsh & Coe, Co. declared their intent to establish the first and only bank in Deadwood, South Dakota. As an apprentice, the firm paid me a meager stipend, affording me scarcely enough to rent the lowliest flat in all Dorchester. Like a peacock among pigeons, I failed to blend in with Dorchester's denizens. No one likes an outsider. Daily, I drudged through the mires of Dorchester's worst. And every day I arrived, my suit disheveled, my complexion bruised blue, my pockets picked. So every day Marsh & Coe, Co. found the degraded gentleman that remained of me. Of their staff, the executive management estimated me to be their rowdiest employee. They shuttled me off to orchestrate the construction of their bank, the First Deadwood Bank.
I arrived and Deadwood knew. One posse procured my luggage set; another posse procured Marsh & Coe Co.'s realty payment; a third posse procured my accouterments momentarily; Calamity Jane procured me as her chattel, clobbered the thieves, reclaimed the clothing that was now hers (by extension of me), left me undressed and sinful, and checked us into a single room with a matrimonial bed at the Loose Dove's Roost.
No one disturbed Calamity Jane or her belongings. Though she slew many men during our courtship, she remained a sensitive lover. But as a partner, she lacked the eloquence needed to garner my respect, so she domesticated me by whip. Once I thought I might grow old with Calamity Jane, forever: she, my man, and I, her dude. But our romance best suited brevity. All her sweet nothings smell of sour mash. She wears other men's blood like mascara and other men's sweat like perfume; She does not disclose how she becomes stained so. She has reprimanded the impudence of my mouth so many times my words wear the swollen drawl of one who fears speech.
Now I see the First Deadwood Bank, its scaffolded skeleton, half-built, without a blueprint or plan, unsound.
Now I see my beloved Calamity Jane, half-dead, half-loved, her eyes on her bottle and her gun.
I step outside to renounce my life as a gentleman, to become one of the Calamity Johns, to ravage the Dakotas from south to north. But they shoot me. I think hear her muster the strength to guffaw.
Calamity Jane coughs violently, and though she never liked pretty things, she inadvertantly decorates her bedsheets with the floral pattern of a portentous funerary bouquet: verdurous phlegm flecked with crimson buds. The brutess does not notice, continues to cough until empty, then spits. To her violence, I flinch and squeal and wail, just as her ongoing regimens of daily abuse had conditioned me to react. My histrionics, which normally elicits her boastful guffaw, fail to fruit even a smirk. She slips into a defeated sleep, and I contemplate the brief life that may await me without her protection.
Nervously, I watch through the window slats. Her illness advertises an opportunity to all the prairie's marauders: the coyotes and the desperados. Now Calamity Jane cannot protect Deadwood or, more selfishly, me. With its heroine fallen, they come to exact retribution upon all which abides by that very society which shuns them. Man and beast alike run Main Street amok, gobbling the vittles off still-clucking chickens, urinating to claim property like conquistadors, nipping up skirts at feminine softnesses, howling with the seductive madness that makes one join in; But I resist their call. How they meet my eyes through the window slats, I know they know I am a gentleman, and so I too shall bear retribution.
Two years ago, Marsh & Coe, Co. declared their intent to establish the first and only bank in Deadwood, South Dakota. As an apprentice, the firm paid me a meager stipend, affording me scarcely enough to rent the lowliest flat in all Dorchester. Like a peacock among pigeons, I failed to blend in with Dorchester's denizens. No one likes an outsider. Daily, I drudged through the mires of Dorchester's worst. And every day I arrived, my suit disheveled, my complexion bruised blue, my pockets picked. So every day Marsh & Coe, Co. found the degraded gentleman that remained of me. Of their staff, the executive management estimated me to be their rowdiest employee. They shuttled me off to orchestrate the construction of their bank, the First Deadwood Bank.
I arrived and Deadwood knew. One posse procured my luggage set; another posse procured Marsh & Coe Co.'s realty payment; a third posse procured my accouterments momentarily; Calamity Jane procured me as her chattel, clobbered the thieves, reclaimed the clothing that was now hers (by extension of me), left me undressed and sinful, and checked us into a single room with a matrimonial bed at the Loose Dove's Roost.
No one disturbed Calamity Jane or her belongings. Though she slew many men during our courtship, she remained a sensitive lover. But as a partner, she lacked the eloquence needed to garner my respect, so she domesticated me by whip. Once I thought I might grow old with Calamity Jane, forever: she, my man, and I, her dude. But our romance best suited brevity. All her sweet nothings smell of sour mash. She wears other men's blood like mascara and other men's sweat like perfume; She does not disclose how she becomes stained so. She has reprimanded the impudence of my mouth so many times my words wear the swollen drawl of one who fears speech.
Now I see the First Deadwood Bank, its scaffolded skeleton, half-built, without a blueprint or plan, unsound.
Now I see my beloved Calamity Jane, half-dead, half-loved, her eyes on her bottle and her gun.
I step outside to renounce my life as a gentleman, to become one of the Calamity Johns, to ravage the Dakotas from south to north. But they shoot me. I think hear her muster the strength to guffaw.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
skit #76: nothing unnatural
Reeds waft and mosquitoes croon, ripening us. Many broadcast their midnight sentiments in the lagoon. The barrage of trilling frogsongs sets every amphibian gonad aquiver, either to activity or to anticipation. Their slick vocal sacs balloon and unballoon, seducing us volumetrically. We all wade eye-deep in the very same soup, wanting nothing more than to relieve our bodies of impatient eggs. I find a song for me.
You and I grope one another pheromonally at pond-length through porous skins; Skin has no stomach so we are never sated. As I paddle coyly towards you, my webbing unavoidably swats the jellied eggs and pollywogs that already fill the basin underwater. I may crush some, but we will soon make more. We care not of who, but how.
A carnal mantra truncates all my thoughts. Hormones manage my marionette strings, conducting me masterfully. I am out of control. You, my tiny suitor, clamber atop me like a fertile island. I find an archipelago of conquistador-newfoundlands shuddering about me. The innumerable babies below indent my belly, and I cannot help but expel my eggs into the pond.
We all do. Eggs are everywhere. A reproductive diagram somewhere outlines our life cycle, and we fulfill its prophecy.
As foreign as icebergs in our Mississippi bayou, quality-rejected pills quietly buoy from the pharmaceutical company upstream: anti-depressants, contraceptives, fertility meds. They mandate my exhausted body must copulate again, so I do. Again, so I do, so do we all. Nothing unnatural makes us suspicious. Our amplified hormones bring only clarity. If anything, according to the diagram, we are too alive.
A pickup truck parks at the muddy shore. We cannot and shall not disentangle. Compulsion paralyzes us all. Again, so do we all.
brrrrEEEEEEEEEEP.
Trudy's back depresses the car horn as Micky fumbles unhooking her bra. The highbeams of her pickup truck illuminate the eyes of the mating frogs. Their nictations twinkle cosmically among the black bog-formed firmament. Her FM radio drones love ballads, setting the mood. Trudy finds a song for her.
Things with Micky were going well. They had been going steady for three weeks. Micky had a job and bought her ice cream after school. They neck ineptly, like teething vampires. Her gynecologist had taught her the responsibilities of womanhood. She had showed Trudy pictures of a female ovum and of a male sperm, the latter seeming nothing more than little parasitic tadpoles. The gynecologist then gave Trudy the Pill.
But Trudy still didn't feel ready. Micky's hand got only as far as her breast despite his exaggerated claims. Trudy kept him at bay until week six. Then she ran the first leg through the reproductive cycle, perhaps limping, perhaps sprinting, not yet knowing if it felt natural.
You and I grope one another pheromonally at pond-length through porous skins; Skin has no stomach so we are never sated. As I paddle coyly towards you, my webbing unavoidably swats the jellied eggs and pollywogs that already fill the basin underwater. I may crush some, but we will soon make more. We care not of who, but how.
A carnal mantra truncates all my thoughts. Hormones manage my marionette strings, conducting me masterfully. I am out of control. You, my tiny suitor, clamber atop me like a fertile island. I find an archipelago of conquistador-newfoundlands shuddering about me. The innumerable babies below indent my belly, and I cannot help but expel my eggs into the pond.
We all do. Eggs are everywhere. A reproductive diagram somewhere outlines our life cycle, and we fulfill its prophecy.
As foreign as icebergs in our Mississippi bayou, quality-rejected pills quietly buoy from the pharmaceutical company upstream: anti-depressants, contraceptives, fertility meds. They mandate my exhausted body must copulate again, so I do. Again, so I do, so do we all. Nothing unnatural makes us suspicious. Our amplified hormones bring only clarity. If anything, according to the diagram, we are too alive.
A pickup truck parks at the muddy shore. We cannot and shall not disentangle. Compulsion paralyzes us all. Again, so do we all.
brrrrEEEEEEEEEEP.
Trudy's back depresses the car horn as Micky fumbles unhooking her bra. The highbeams of her pickup truck illuminate the eyes of the mating frogs. Their nictations twinkle cosmically among the black bog-formed firmament. Her FM radio drones love ballads, setting the mood. Trudy finds a song for her.
Things with Micky were going well. They had been going steady for three weeks. Micky had a job and bought her ice cream after school. They neck ineptly, like teething vampires. Her gynecologist had taught her the responsibilities of womanhood. She had showed Trudy pictures of a female ovum and of a male sperm, the latter seeming nothing more than little parasitic tadpoles. The gynecologist then gave Trudy the Pill.
But Trudy still didn't feel ready. Micky's hand got only as far as her breast despite his exaggerated claims. Trudy kept him at bay until week six. Then she ran the first leg through the reproductive cycle, perhaps limping, perhaps sprinting, not yet knowing if it felt natural.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
skit #75: whatever he respired
Percy's personal moon wasted no time on the in-betweens: always full, a shoulder-width aperture to uncontained skies; or new, the covered manhole; or eclipsed, the downtown traffic racing over his subterranean kingdom. The Sanitation Department did not doubt Percy's self-proclaimed passion for sewage treatment, nor did they refuse his volunteered time. At the end of some workdays, he would return above ground and wait for public transit to deliver him to the discomfort of his apartment where he spent the evening resenting the moon's regular faces under which continent men slept.
But most nights he slept in the sewers, swaddled in his municipally-provided uniform. He could leave whenever he wanted to -- the sewer or the job or Manhattan or anything else. He was free from everything except his bowels. He thought these thoughts as he delayed dreaming, his head heavy against the concrete precipice. The fetid stench of sewer muck wafted from the river, burbling with what New York's stomachs could not use; The handkerchief he held to his nose was doused with his auntie's perfume, a scent so dense nothing noisome could penetrate it.
Percy peeked over his handkerchief. He held the tincture of his auntie's perfume against the utility lights. He rotated it between his forefinger and thumb and in each facet it appeared equally pale, where his history remained imprisoned behind a millimeter of brittle glass. Deeper he looked into the perfume and deeper he huffed his handkerchief. Olfactory memories whisked him away.
His mother and her sister clucked as they made way through garden, trimming hedges into pleasing geometries and weeding anything ugly. They gossiped and sipped beers. He was old enough, maybe twelve years, and he had accidentally shat himself again. But he knew this time wasn't his fault. The rose thorns hooked his overalls. He bleated for help for hours, but the adults had left for indoors long ago. A little one slipped out as he wept -- just one little one. But his mother's pittance of patience had been spent. She walloped him. Then she sent him to a behaviorist. Then she sent him to disciplinary school. His auntie was the one who wept as she saw him off.
His mother wore the same scent as his auntie. Or maybe his auntie wore the same scent as his mother. Yet they smelled differently: sometimes the perfume smelled like composting soil, like bleach, like suffocating shame; and sometimes it smelled like baby wipes, like bubble baths, like bedtime stories; but always like roses.
Remembrance left Percy too bleary to see the tincture any longer. He watched the sewage come only to go inconsequentially. It drifted freely throughout the labyrinths of the sewer. He goes where ever he likes and his mother will never know. Between the velvety must of the rose perfume and the blighted tunnel air, whatever he respired sickened him.
The Central Office transmitted Percy's orders over the walkie-talkie: SEPTIC BLOCKAGE, ROUTE 44-7JW-B. But they weren't paying him so Percy ignored them. It was six in the morning. He stood beneath his mother's apartmental facilities, listening. He can hear her squeak meekly and moments later the plumbing produced her stool. He smiled forgivingly like a good son could.
His personal moon reflected on the sewage. Though his mother does not watch the same moon, she may witness the same reflection.
But most nights he slept in the sewers, swaddled in his municipally-provided uniform. He could leave whenever he wanted to -- the sewer or the job or Manhattan or anything else. He was free from everything except his bowels. He thought these thoughts as he delayed dreaming, his head heavy against the concrete precipice. The fetid stench of sewer muck wafted from the river, burbling with what New York's stomachs could not use; The handkerchief he held to his nose was doused with his auntie's perfume, a scent so dense nothing noisome could penetrate it.
Percy peeked over his handkerchief. He held the tincture of his auntie's perfume against the utility lights. He rotated it between his forefinger and thumb and in each facet it appeared equally pale, where his history remained imprisoned behind a millimeter of brittle glass. Deeper he looked into the perfume and deeper he huffed his handkerchief. Olfactory memories whisked him away.
His mother and her sister clucked as they made way through garden, trimming hedges into pleasing geometries and weeding anything ugly. They gossiped and sipped beers. He was old enough, maybe twelve years, and he had accidentally shat himself again. But he knew this time wasn't his fault. The rose thorns hooked his overalls. He bleated for help for hours, but the adults had left for indoors long ago. A little one slipped out as he wept -- just one little one. But his mother's pittance of patience had been spent. She walloped him. Then she sent him to a behaviorist. Then she sent him to disciplinary school. His auntie was the one who wept as she saw him off.
His mother wore the same scent as his auntie. Or maybe his auntie wore the same scent as his mother. Yet they smelled differently: sometimes the perfume smelled like composting soil, like bleach, like suffocating shame; and sometimes it smelled like baby wipes, like bubble baths, like bedtime stories; but always like roses.
Remembrance left Percy too bleary to see the tincture any longer. He watched the sewage come only to go inconsequentially. It drifted freely throughout the labyrinths of the sewer. He goes where ever he likes and his mother will never know. Between the velvety must of the rose perfume and the blighted tunnel air, whatever he respired sickened him.
The Central Office transmitted Percy's orders over the walkie-talkie: SEPTIC BLOCKAGE, ROUTE 44-7JW-B. But they weren't paying him so Percy ignored them. It was six in the morning. He stood beneath his mother's apartmental facilities, listening. He can hear her squeak meekly and moments later the plumbing produced her stool. He smiled forgivingly like a good son could.
His personal moon reflected on the sewage. Though his mother does not watch the same moon, she may witness the same reflection.
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